Indoctrination or education? Anonymous donor gifts partisan Te Tiriti handbook to all NZ high schools
An anonymous act of generosity is bringing Understanding Te Tiriti – A Handbook of Basic Facts by lawyer Roimata Smail to every high school in New Zealand.
Smail shared, “It is my hope… that all high school students will get an opportunity to know what it took me 20 years to learn.” The donor, inspired by a presentation at Ponsonby’s Women’s Bookshop, decided to fund the nationwide distribution.
The first books were presented at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o te Raki Paewhenua on 29 November, with hundreds more dispatched to high schools from a Rangiora logistics centre.
Smail, who specialises in Treaty-related legal cases, self-publishes through Wai Ako Books. She described the donation as “a dream come true.”
Editor’s note: What’s notably absent from the reporting is that Understanding Te Tiriti – A Handbook of Basic Facts presents a highly partisan perspective.
The book claims that Māori never ceded sovereignty, a point that remains hotly contested. This raises significant concerns about introducing it into schools without broader scrutiny. Shouldn’t schools rely solely on government-approved history, vetted to ensure balanced and accurate content?
The distribution of this book deserves closer examination and might prompt questions about whether alternative perspectives should also be made available. Could others step forward to fund the distribution of a different version to ensure students receive a well-rounded education?
The Centrist is a new online news platform that strives to provide a balance to the public debate - where this article was sourced.
The first books were presented at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o te Raki Paewhenua on 29 November, with hundreds more dispatched to high schools from a Rangiora logistics centre.
Smail, who specialises in Treaty-related legal cases, self-publishes through Wai Ako Books. She described the donation as “a dream come true.”
Editor’s note: What’s notably absent from the reporting is that Understanding Te Tiriti – A Handbook of Basic Facts presents a highly partisan perspective.
The book claims that Māori never ceded sovereignty, a point that remains hotly contested. This raises significant concerns about introducing it into schools without broader scrutiny. Shouldn’t schools rely solely on government-approved history, vetted to ensure balanced and accurate content?
The distribution of this book deserves closer examination and might prompt questions about whether alternative perspectives should also be made available. Could others step forward to fund the distribution of a different version to ensure students receive a well-rounded education?
The Centrist is a new online news platform that strives to provide a balance to the public debate - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
Roimata Smail is an activist.
Activists never tell the truth, it's inconvenient.
Sir Aparana Ngata was not an activist and his 1922 Maori language explanation of the TOW is a clear and concise truth.
Roimata Smail's version of the 'truth' is and will for ever be simply
I.N.D.O.C.T.R.I.N.A.T.I.O.N....
Bloody should be condemned! So vile. Staunch pushback without any apology needed. It needs equal might for this fight.
What people don't want is a bunch of violent bullies, theives and con artists telling us what to do, and syphoning off the GDP and tax revenue. And preventing property ownership.
Let's think about this for a minute ... "government-approved history" - that has gotten us along way thus far hasn't it? The 1975 ToW Act is based on a fraudulent English translation. Other publications approved by the Education Ministry and other Ministries abound but anything by way of alternative perspectives is sidelined or outright censored. So, pray tell us why others might step forward to fund distribution of a different version when they know it will, in all probability, be flushed down the toilet?
I wonder how closely Roimata Smail's understanding of the Treaty follows what I recently posted regarding the NZ Nursing Council's interpretation of the Treaty? To quote them again:
"The Council is committed to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the overarching framework for the standards of competence for enrolled and registered nurses, ensuring that public safety and culturally safe care are at the heart of the profession. The standards of competence incorporate the articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi: • Kāwanatanga (Governance): Nurses foster partnerships with Māori and embrace diverse cultural perspectives in healthcare governance. • Tino rangatiratanga (Self-determination): Nurses support Māori autonomy and ensure that care is inclusive of all identities and backgrounds, upholding the right to self-determination. • Ōritetanga (Equity): Nurses are responsible for addressing health inequities and ensuring equal access to high-quality care for all communities. • Wairuatanga (Spiritual freedom): Holistic care is essential, recognising the spiritual and cultural dimensions of health for Māori and other diverse groups.”
Who ever would have thought those three Articles in 1840 could have morphed into four and be overarchingly applicable to nursing care in 2025 - when the new competencies are to come into effect? I haven't read Smail's booklet but I suspect it will be propaganda, filled with falsehoods and aimed to indoctrinate, just like the Nursing Council's efforts.
Precisely - well put! Looking at: https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/maori/treaty-waitangi/treaty-close/full-text-te-tiriti-o can anyone with a brain see the words 'Equity or Spiritual Freedom', the new made up words 'Ōritetanga or Wairuatanga' - No, I thought not ... and the English text is the fraudulent one. The Nurses Council needs to be censured and our Health Minister needs to root out the cancer within.
The good news is that whatever you tell students, between many and most are likely to dismiss. And the more you hammer a point, the more they will resist. The problem is, of course, that we now have a filter system to keep the sceptics out of govt jobs and positions of power - if a candidate does not make all the right ideological noises at the interview stage, it's bye-bye in favour of one who does, competence not being a material factor.
I was just looking at the school journals on the Treaty in the current school curriculum. They are bad enough, showing pre-colonial Maori living a happy existence in harmony with each other and the environment, and then along comes the nasty white people, escaping the hell that was Europe. The Treaty was apparently just to control the white people, but straight away they breached it. But Jacinda (the only pakeha politician mentioned in a positive way) was trying to fix things.
Only in naive NZ would a highly paid public servant be plotting the overthrow of the nation's democracy.
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